DOVEADM-INDEX(1) Dovecot DOVEADM-INDEX(1)
NAME
doveadm-index - Index mailboxes
SYNOPSIS
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] index [-S socket_path] -A [-q] [-n max_recent]
mailbox
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] index [-S socket_path] -F file [-q] [-n max_re-
cent] mailbox
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] index [-S socket_path] --no-userdb-lookup [-q]
[-n max_recent] mailbox
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] index [-S socket_path] -u user [-q] [-n max_re-
cent] mailbox
DESCRIPTION
Add unindexed messages in a mailbox into index/cache file. If full text
search is enabled, also add unindexed messages to the fts database.
The caching adds only the fields that were previously added to the mail-
box's caching decisions, so it won't do anything useful for mailboxes
that user's client hasn't accessed yet. You can use doveadm dump command
to show a specific mailbox's current caching decisions.
Messages can also be added automatically to full text search index us-
ing:
fts_autoindex = yes
GLOBAL OPTIONS
Global doveadm(1)
-D
Enables verbosity and debug messages.
-O
Do not read any config file, just use defaults. The dovecot_stor-
age_version setting defaults to the latest version, but can be over-
ridden with
-k
Preserve entire environment for doveadm, not just import_environment
setting.
-v
Enables verbosity, including progress counter.
-i instance-name
If using multiple Dovecot instances, choose the config file based on
this instance name.
See instance_name setting for more information.
-c config-file
Read configuration from the given config-file. By default it first
reads config socket, and then falls back to /etc/dovecot/dove-
cot.conf. You can also point this to config socket of some instance
running compatible version.
-o setting=value
Overrides the configuration setting from /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
and from the userdb with the given value. In order to override mul-
tiple settings, the -o option may be specified multiple times.
OPTIONS
-A
If the -A option is present, the command will be performed for all
users. Using this option in combination with system users from
userdb { driver = passwd } is not recommended, because it contains
also users with a lower UID than the one configured with the
first_valid_uid setting.
When the SQL userdb module is used, make sure that the
userdb_sql_iterate_query setting setting matches your database lay-
out.
When using the LDAP userdb module, make sure that the userdb_fields
setting and userdb_ldap_iterate_fields setting settings match your
LDAP schema. Otherwise doveadm(1) will be unable to iterate over all
users.
-F file
Execute the command for all the users in the file. This is similar
to the -A option, but instead of getting the list of users from the
userdb, they are read from the given file. The file contains one
username per line.
-n max_recent
An integer value, which specifies the maximum number of \Recent mes-
sages in mailboxes. If the mailbox contains more than max_recent
messages with \Recent flag set, the mailbox will not be indexed.
This may be useful to avoid unnecessary indexing for large mailboxes
that are never opened.
--no-userdb-lookup
Do not perform userdb lookup. Use the USER environment variable to
specify the username.
-q
Queues the indexing to be run by indexer process. Without -q the in-
dexing is done directly by the doveadm(1) process. Some drivers
can't handle multiple processes updating the indexes simultaneously,
so -q should usually be used on production.
-S socket_path
The option's argument is either an absolute path to a local UNIX do-
main socket, or a hostname and port (hostname:port), in order to
connect a remote host via a TCP socket.
This allows an administrator to execute doveadm(1) mail commands
through the given socket.
-u user/mask
Run the command only for the given user. It's also possible to use
'*' and '?' wildcards (e.g. -u *@example.org).
ARGUMENTS
mailbox
The name of the mailbox to index.
EXAMPLE
Index bob's INBOX:
doveadm index -u bob INBOX
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List
⟨dovecot@dovecot.org⟩. Information about reporting bugs is available at:
https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html
SEE ALSO
doveadm(1)
78ffb79 March 2025 DOVEADM-INDEX(1)
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